


She Slept. She Walked. She Remembered.

by RedactedReader



Category: The Haunting of Bly Manor (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-13
Updated: 2020-10-13
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:55:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26982484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedactedReader/pseuds/RedactedReader
Summary: Flora slept. And she walked. And she dreamed of ghosts with smooth faces and a lady from below the surface of the lake. Long after leaving the Manor grounds, long after she forgot those horrid months, Flora longed to remember.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 60





	She Slept. She Walked. She Remembered.

Written using Bad Things Happen Bingo: Childhood Trauma (the whole show was childhood trauma)  
000

She slept. She slept a great deal as the child inside her grew. And when she slept, she dreamed. Of forgotten stairwells and spiraled banisters and of flowers among the weeds. Of doll houses with twinkling lights and cakes of lemon and strawberry. Of a boy whose face had been lost to her in time. And of a women who slept deep below her own personal sea.

She dreamed and she dreamed and she thought of those dreams. They were gone by time she woke. Her eyes would flutter open and the walks among gentle flowers would fade to the back of her mind. And so she slept. And she dreamed. And she forgot. The baby in her stomach grew, and life danced along beside her. And she kept on dreaming. 

And then she walked. Late at night she’d slip from bed and walk the floors of their perfect cottage home. She’d walk the stairs and walked the halls and walked the grounds with their bundles of yellow flowers. She’d walk and she’d dream and she tried to remember. But it wasn’t there.

“Amelia?” His voice would bring her back. Amelia, but for this we would call her Flora, would wake from her walking sleep, turned to the face of the man she loved. And that face lost in the water would be lost to her dreams.

“Was I sleepwalking again?” Flora would ask oh so many times. The baby would kick, its arrival in the world drawing oh so close. 

“Yes, Love, you were.” Jake would always push the loose strains of her hair behind her ear and look at her with such love. “Let’s get you some tea.” 

His tea tasted of berries and honey. It was sweet upon her lips and reminded her of a tea much more poorly brewed. That familiar taste would linger on her tongue. “I feel like I’m forgetting something. Or remembering something. But remembering it poorly. I can’t really explain.”

“What is it you’re remembering?”

“A memory. Many memories.” They’d have this conversation. Over and over again as she tried to remember something she couldn’t even remember forgetting. Flora would let the warmth of the steam coat her face. The sweet liquid would coarse her lips and lull her back into rest. But the face remained. The memory remained. She would sleep. And she would walk. And she would try to remember.

“Do you ever think of it?” She would ask her brother. Benjamin Miles, or shall we just say Miles, would ask her what she meant. “The Manor. Do you ever think about it?”

“What’s there to think about?” He’d look at her a bit strange. As if he thought about it too, but didn’t want to say so. She wondered if he walked and slept. If he remembered more than he’d let on. “We stayed there as kids. We were there after mum and dad…”

He’d trail off and look away. And she’d know. She’d know he walked sometimes when he slept. And that he remembered that he’d forgotten something too. Something he couldn’t quite remember. “It was a rough time Amelia. We were dealing with a lot. With mum and dad gone. We were kids. Kids dream up a lot of weird things. And its normal to forget some childhood dream.”

It wasn’t a dream. Or it was a dream. She couldn’t quite remember.

“Sweetheart, why do you ask these questions?” Her Uncle would chuckle and fix a curl in her hair. But would look away soon after. His gaze never looked like he was struggling to remember. They held a shine like he knew. Like he knew what she forgot. Like he didn’t need to sleep to remember. 

“I just keep having these dreams,” she would confide in him.

“What kind of dreams?”

“A woman in the water. And a boy with no face. And footprints in the halls. And… and it’s like I remember. And then I forget. And I remember again. And its a cycle. Like I’m stuck… in a memory.”

Her Uncle would hold her, reminding her that she was here and she was safe and childhood dreams could not hurt her anymore. Anymore, he would say. And she’d wonder what he meant. Anymore. Why anymore. How could a dream, a memory hurt her? 

And so she’d dream. 

And she’d walk. 

And she’d remember. 

And she’d forget. 

And the world continue to turn. Her baby would continue to grow. Her husband would continue to love. And she would continue to forget. 

“I wanna go back.” She said. And those words did all to wake her from her dream. To bring her back from some years long daze. “To the Manor. I need to go back.”

“Why?” Her Uncle seemed to slip from a well crafted memory. “It’s been so long since we were there. Why go back now?”

“I think I need to.” Flora answered. She placed a hand on her stomach. The baby inside her was so close to her arrival. Three weeks. Three weeks and the little girl they hadn’t been able to name would come into the world. “I need to remember whatever I’ve forgotten. I have to.”

Her Uncle seemed unsure. Like he preferred their continued suppression of whatever they forgot. But he knew, just as she did, that it was cruel to keep them in the dream. To keep them dancing at the edge of a memory. He agreed. To take her back to the Manor. To bring her to the edge of that memory. 

Her brother declined. He had his own life, his own family, and had no use to drudge up old memories. She had smiled and accepted, but knew he was just as lost. Knew he wandered his halls, and dreamed of a sunken memory lost to time. Dreamed of muddy footprints that might one day veer towards his daughter’s crib. Dreamed of his wives face, smoothed as if eroded by a watery current. He dreamed. And he slept. And he walked. And he didn’t care to relive that dream.

The Manor was just as she remembered. It was large and welcoming and foreboding all the same. She could find no words to describe it. No words that would do justice to the beautiful manor nestled deep within a full woods of trees. The setting evening sun cast a soft glow over the estate. “It’s just as I remember.”

Her Uncle kept behind her as she moved through the familiar halls. The shining oak foyer with its double branching stairs greeted her upon entry. She left at home. Like a shroud was lifted over her head for the first time in so many years. She climbed the stairs, trailing a small hand over the smoothed wood. She had walked these halls oh so many times. Careless and young and innocent of the world. This had been her castle.

The place was empty of any sign of family. All the furnishings specific to them had been brought along when they moved out. There was bare bones of beds with perfectly made sheets and couches with a healthy layer of dust over them. Chandeliers with a tinge of rust to their sculpted features. Fireplaces that had grown cold and hallow without the flame to fill their hearth. A kitchen table with a forgotten stain marring its light wood finish. Paintings on the walls to cast eyes over the echoing, empty, halls. 

Her old room smelled of stale air. The door cheeked as she opened it, its hinges stiff from being left to rest. A blanket done of soft pink roses and white trim covered the bed. The walls had faded in color. The windows bore a layer of dust that dulled the shine of the evening sun through them. The wardrobe was closed, hiding the empty cavern behind its doors. The table which once held her precious dollhouse sat vacant beside the empty bed. The life given by a little girl was stolen from this room. 

The life was stolen from the house as a whole. 

She remembered the boy. The one without the face until she had given him one. Who had sat by her dollhouse and had run from her down the hall. Who had been her friend without a word spoken from him. And there were others. Others with smoothed over faces that she gave names and memories to. That she created dolls of. There was one still there. One doll laying forgotten on the floor by the table.

She wrapped her fingers around it, bringing to to see. Its face was a lump and nothing more. Its dress stained and tore. Its long black strings of hair limp and knotted. It was a doll. A little stuffed figure she had made herself. Yet it scared her. This tiny doll in her hand held so much fear.

“The Lady of the Lake,” Flora whispered. Like a forgotten spell the words helped slip the veil of a dream further from her eyes. She remembered the icy water upon her skin. The women screaming at her own corpse in the milky lake. The face eroded away under the water as the women slept and slept. She had slept. And she had walked. And she had taken. 

She held the doll to her chest. But what had she taken, that Flora didn’t know. “I remember. But not really. The Lady… was she real?”

“All too real.” Her Uncle had his gaze cast through the window. He seemed lost, walking through his own forgotten dream. He had never forgotten in the first place. Never had the luxury of allowing those dreams to fade into just fantasy. They were still there. Ghosts that walked rather he was asleep or awake. 

“Does she still walk?”

“From time to time. She roams these grounds still. But she does no harm. Not anymore.”

Flora nodded. She cast her gaze out the window. The sun had long gone. The moon cast a silver shine over the crisp green floral scene. The lake sat ahead, a pool of steaming white. It rippled like a stone broke through its surface. “Does she walk tonight?”

“I’m afraid I don’t know. I have not been here to see her walk since they returned to the lake. I have not cared to stay and see it done. Only seen the muddy footprints in the foyer after.”

She nodded. With the doll in her hand, Flora moved from the room. The manor was the same as she traveled back through it. The same hallow halls and vacant eyed paintings. The same oak wood banister and glistening glass windows. The same empty and lonely air permeated her lungs with each breath. She stood in the entrance of the manor; the hallow halls behind her, the quiet yard before her. Flora stood in the threshold, willing the Lady to return. The moon cast a shadow over them all. 

She stood. 

And she waited. 

And she remembered. 

And she called the Lady. She willed her forward so she could remember fully. 

So she stood.

And she waited.

And she held the doll within her grasp. 

And the lake rippled. Like a stone breaking through its surface, the lake rippled. 

And from it emerged a figure. She was pale in the moonlight. She walked slow and straight. Her head forward and her steps deliberate. There were no words that could cross her lips that would describe this women. She was ethereal and radiant and did not belong to this world, or the next. She was an angle, she was a devil, she was everything in between and neither of those things. She was human, and she was not. And she walked. She walked as if in a dream. 

Flora walked towards her. She felt her Uncle try to pull her back, but he could do nothing to stop her. Could do nothing to keep her from meeting the Lady. The lady she dreamed of. The lady she remembered. The lady she walked with night after night in restless sleep. She was so familiar. So familiar she didn’t know how she forgot it in the first place. 

“Dani...” she whispered. The Lady walked. Walked right passed her without giving a second glace. She walked passed her Uncle. Walked into the house and disappeared up the stairs. “Where does she goes? To the same room?”

“I do not know,” her Uncle replied. “I assume its the same path Viola might have traveled when she awoke. But I do not know where she goes. Or why. I’m afraid I am not the one you would have to ask.” 

Flora wanted to follow. To see where the Lady of the Lake would go. But she didn’t. That fear so deeply embedded into her soul began to grow once more. So she stood. And she waited. And she remembered. She finally remembered all that she had forgotten. And she didn’t understand how she had forgotten in the first place. “The story, the one told of Bly… how could I have forgotten. How could I have forgotten here. How could I have forgotten her?” 

“The mind forgets what it cannot handle. It hides the suffering, the pain, the lose within dreams and lost memories. It protects us from the things that would break us.” Her Uncle spoke solemnly. The dreams behind his gaze housed a demon long slept dormant. But as the Lady of the Lake had shown, all spirits awake at some point. And though the demon within his soul lay buried within those forgotten dreams, it was never fully at rest. None of them were ever at rest. “I didn’t want you to relive this. Relive the trauma from your childhood.”

The new Lady of the Lake walked from the home. She gave not a glance at the pair as she slipped away below the broken surface of the water. The ripples left in her wake settled as she disappeared beneath the lake. Dani, or would we call her Viola at this day, took slumber once more upon the bottom of the lake.

Flora remembered it all and she vowed to never forget again. To never forget the au pair who saved her life. Who came in with demons of her own and gave her soul to save two children who were not hers. Or maybe they were hers. They had been Dani’s as much as Dani had been theirs. And Dani was here, resting alone at the bottom of the lake, set to walk the grounds in a faded dream.

“It’s not trauma,” Flora spoke slowly. The lake was a mirror of silver, holding so many horrors below its surface. “Not really.”


End file.
